Rand Paul on Government Reform

Term limits would infuse Congress with new ideas

All is not well in America. America is adrift. Something is clearly wrong. America needs many things, but what America desperately needs is new leadership.

There is no monopoly on knowledge in Washington. The best thing that could happen is for us--to
once and for all--limit the terms of all politicians. We already limit the President to two terms. I think we should put limits on the terms of Congress and infuse our government with fresh ideas.

Source: Tea Party response to the 2015 State of the Union address
, Jan 20, 2015

Supports early voting; but voter ID also ok

Q: what about this business about tightening up the voter I.D. laws? Should they be tighter? Should they have to show all this identification?

PAUL: I have mixed feelings. When I go in a government building, I have got to show my driver's license. So,
I am not really opposed to it. I am opposed to it as a campaign theme. If you want to get the African-American vote, they think that this is suppression somehow and it's a terrible thing. I really think that we should restore the voting rights of those
who had a previous conviction; that's where the real voting problem is. I'm not against early voting. I grew in Texas. We voted early for a month or two before elections for probably 20 years, and Texas is still a Republican state. But it's perception.
The Republicans have to get beyond this perception that they don't want African-Americans to vote. Now, I don't think it's true. I'm not saying it's true. But by being for all these things, it reinforces a stereotype that we need to break down.

President should not bypass Congress with executive orders

Q: The president said, "I want to work with Congress, but I do have a pen and a phone and I can do lots of things with the executive and administrative tools that are before me." What does that say to you?

PAUL: It sounds vaguely like a threat and
I think it also has a certain amount of arrogance in the sense that one of the fundamental principles of our country were the checks and balances that it wasn't supposed to be easy to pass legislation. You had to debate and convince people.
So, there's a lot of things the president's not allowed to do. President's not allowed to write or amend legislation. He's not allowed to initiate war. And he's not allowed to tell us when we're in recess and when we're not. He says, "oh, well, it's
hard to get Congress to do anything." Well, yes, welcome to the real world. It's hard to convince people to get legislation through. It takes consensus. But that's what he needs to be doing is building consensus and not taking his pen and creating law.

Term limits if budget can't get balanced

Washington could use a good dose of transparency, which is why we should fight back against middle of the night deals that end with massive bills no one has read. We must continue to fight for legislation that forces Congress to read the bills!
We must continue to object when Congress sticks special interest riders on bills in the dead of night!

And if Congress refuses to obey its own rules, if Congress refuses to pass a budget, if Congress refuses to read the bills, then I say:
Sweep the place clean. Limit their terms and send them home!

I have seen the inner sanctum of Congress and believe me there is no monopoly on knowledge there.
If they will not listen, if they will not balance the budget, then we should limit their terms.

Fund new programs by deleting existing ones

In Washington, [there are] the omnipresent groups of lobbyists and special interests who every day descend upon every Capitol Hill office in droves.

I have come to refer to them as the Beseechers. Their hands are always out. They are here to tell me
why their cause/products/disease/group is by far the most--in fact possibly the ONLY--one deserving of large amounts of federal dollars, tax breaks, subsidies, or special rules and privileges.

My office demands that anyone wanting money--for any cause
no matter how necessary or noble--must first explain where the money will come from. What existing program will they delete to pay for their desired program?

If you've come for more federal money, well, guess what--we're broke.

If you've come
for a special-interest tax break, you'll get yours when everyone else does--no special favors.

If you've come to have a rule written to stifle your competition--you'll more likely find my office hard at work repealing rules, not creating them.

Conservatives should criticize GOP when they grow government

Imagine Obama had governed from 2000 to 2008 exactly as Bush did. Would Republicans have given Obama and his party a free pass in carrying out the exact same agenda as Bush? It's hard to imagine this being the case, given the grief Bill Clinton got from
Republicans, even though his big government agenda was less ambitious than Bush's. Yet, the last Republican president got very little criticism from his own party for most of his tenure.

For conservatives, there was no excuse for this.

Obama has
proved far worse than Bush, no doubt, but this doesn't make Bush preferable, unless preference is dictated solely by party affiliation. But Clinton spent less money than his successor.

The word "conservative" came to lose its meaning as Republicans
doubled government and the debt under their own watch. The Democrats are now tripling both and must be stopped-- but by a return to fiscal and constitutional sanity, not simply the same old, status quo insanity under the same old Republican brand.

Our legislative victory: an end to earmarks

A significant target of voter outrage as of late has been the practice of earmarking, a long-standing Washington method of tacking on pork-barrel spending to just about any piece of legislation.
After the 2010 elections, enough new leaders had been elected who wanted to change business as usual in government. By the end of the year, we finally had a major legislative victory on this important issue--and we put an end to earmarks.

Within a month after the elections, even President Obama was hearing the message. In his State of the Union speech, President Obama embraced the era of no earmarks.
I joked that instead of Washington co-opting the Tea Party, we were co-opting Washington. The Tea Party was even co-opting President Obama!

Instead of bringing home the bacon, bring home politicians

"We are bankrupting this country, and the bottom line is that the politicians don't get it. The only message they will understand is a one-way ticket home. Instead of bringing home the bacon, let's bring home the politicians.
Bring them home to live with the mess they've created."

I ended my speech that day with one simple line: "I'm Rand Paul and I approve this message."

FactCheck: No, Kagan never she'd regulate vegetable eating

In talking about the constitutionality of the health care law, Sen. Paul distorted a comment by Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Paul said, "Recently in committee hearings asked Elena Kagan, [she was asked] do you think the government through the
commerce clause could regulate that you eat three vegetables a day. Her response was yes."

Kagan's response was not "yes." During the 10-minute exchange, she outlined precedents set by the Supreme Court and how the commerce clause has been applied,
but she did not give a response to Coburn's hypothetical question about vegetables.

Kagan, June 29, 2010: "The commerce clause has been interpreted broadly. It's been interpreted to apply to regulation of any instruments or instrumentalities or
channels of commerce, but it's also been applied to anything that would substantially affect interstate commerce.. the Congress can't regulate non-economic activities."

Lobbyists' sole goal is to rip you off

Last year, over 15,000 individuals worked for organizations whose sole goal was to rip you off. No, not the mafia or Goldman Sachs, but another distinctly criminal class--
Washington lobbyists. In 2008, corporations and unions spent over $3 billion to bribe officials who claim to work for you.

No Pork Pledge: decrease earmarking; increase transparency.

Paul signed Citizens Against Government Waste's "No Pork Pledge"

Despite congressional reforms over the past several years to reduce pork barreling and increase earmark accountability and transparency, earmarks continue to figure prominently as the "currency of corruption" on Capitol Hill, undermining the federal budgetary process and our democratic system of government. In an effort to encourage more members of Congress and candidates for office to kick the earmarking habit, CCAGW has launched a new no-gimmicks, anti-pork pledge.

By signing CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge, incumbents and candidates vow not to request any pork-barrel earmark, which is defined as meeting one of the following criteria:

Prohibit IRS audits targeting Tea Party political groups.

Paul co-sponsored Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act

Congressional summary:: Stop Targeting of Political Beliefs by the IRS Act: Requires the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) standards and definitions in effect on January 1, 2010, for determining whether an organization qualifies for tax-exempt status as an organization operated exclusively for social welfare to apply to such determinations after enactment of this Act. Prohibits any regulation, or other ruling, not limited to a particular taxpayer relating to such standards and definitions.

Proponent's argument in favor (Heritage Action, Feb. 26, 2014): H.R. 3865 comes in the wake of an attack on the Tea Party and other conservative organizations. The current IRS regulation is so broad and ill-defined that the IRS applies a "facts and circumstances" test to determine what constitutes "political activity" by an organization. This test can vary greatly depending on the subjective views of the particular IRS bureaucrat applying the test.
IRS employees took advantage of this vague and subjective standard to unfairly delay granting tax-exempt status to Tea Party organizations and subject them to unreasonable scrutiny.

Text of sample IRS letter to Tea Party organizations:We need more information before we can complete our consideration of your application for exemption. Please provide the information requested on the enclosed Information Request by the response due date. Your response must be signed by an authorized person or officer whose name is listed on your application.

Have you conducted or will you conduct candidate forums or other events at which candidates running for public offices are invited to speak?

Have you attempted or will you attempt to influence the outcome of specific legislation?

Do you directly or indirectly communicate with members of legislative bodies?

Do you have a close relationship with any candidate for public office or political party?